How three days of social media and livestreaming changed America

It began with video recorded on a mobile phone. The shaky images of two Baton Rouge police officers wrestling a Tasered Alton Sterling to the ground before shooting and killing him in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Mart. The next day, as the Sterling video was rapidly spreading across social media, another African-American was shot and killed by a police officer during a routine traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minn. A day later, a lone sniper gunned down five Dallas law enforcement officers.

Three days of killing. Three days that rocked America. Three events that demanded the country pay attention in large part because of mobile phones, the reach of social media and the power of livestreaming.

And it's these three days in America that are the subject of a Wired magazine feature exploring how viral videos and the reaction on social media triggered massive protests -- much of those were livestreamed -- and a national conversation on race in the United States. The magazine "spoke with 31 participants, witnesses and observers of these events, from the livestreamers and law enforcement officials on the ground to tech executives in Silicon Valley," with the goal of documenting the power of livestreaming and how those three days changed the country.

The piece, which begins in Baton Rouge, includes the voices of Baton Rouge activists Arthur "Silky Slim" Reed, Cleve Dunn Jr., and Gary Chambers as well as Abdullah Muflahi, the owner of the Triple S. Also quoted in the piece is a spokesperson for the Baton Rouge Police Department and Col. Mike Edmonson, superintendent of Louisiana State Police.

The magazine not only documents how the video of Sterling's shooting quickly spread across the country but also how social media and livestreaming made the story more immediate and -- in some sense -- real.

JR Ball is a state correspondent with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune in Baton Rouge. Email him at jrball@nola.com. You can also keep up with his local updates on Twitter (@jrball35), Facebook (jrball) and Google+ (+JRBall).